Comment – Cosmetics, or the luxury that is weathering the crisis

PARIS, October 3 /ATSH-AFP/ – A “Louis Vuitton” lipstick or a “Lancôme” cream.

While the luxury sector seeks to regain growth, high-end cosmetics continue their momentum, driven by consumers who prefer these more affordable purchases over fashion items.

At the “Galeries Lafayette” in Paris, the ground floor is full of customers.

At the “Louis Vuitton” cosmetics counter, 32-year-old Jessica Karawa is testing fragrances.

“I really like perfumes and I bought one yesterday at ‘Creed’,” she says.

The young woman also enjoys luxury items from time to time, such as the monogram bag she carries over her shoulder, but she also admits that the price increases applied by luxury brands in recent years have limited her purchases.

“I bought this bag for 1,000 euros five years ago and now the same product sells for 1,500 euros,” she complains.

“Despite an uncertain geopolitical context and inflationary pressures, the high-end cosmetics segment saw sales growth of 7% in North America, 5% in Europe and 10% in Latin America in the first half of the year,” according to the consulting firm “Circana.”

“This marks the fifth consecutive year of strong growth in the prestige cosmetics market worldwide,” says Mathilde Lion, a director at “Circana” and a specialist in this field.

– “L’Oréal” stronger than LVMH –

Treating yourself without spending too much.

“Makeup is particularly well positioned for this,” she notes.

For several years now, the main luxury groups have understood the value of developing offers that let customers engage with their brands, such as “Hermès,” which introduced its lipsticks in 2020, or “Celine” in 2024.

This strategy is all the more important given that for at least two years, leather goods – long at the top of the luxury sector – have struggled.

In the first half of the year, the fashion and leather goods division of LVMH (“Dior,” “Celine”) fell by 5%, as did that of “Kering” (“Gucci,” “Balenciaga”).

Several factors explain this slowdown, including the price increases applied by the main luxury brands. According to the consulting firm “Bain & Company,” the luxury market will lose 20 million customers between 2024 and 2025, after having already lost 50 million in previous years.

A sign of the growing importance of beauty, the world’s leading beauty company, “L’Oréal” – which offers several lines, from the mass market to luxury products (such as “Lancôme”) and professional ones – recently dethroned the luxury giant LVMH as the top-ranked company in the CAC 40.

A powerful symbol, according to industry expert Eric Briones, who even speaks of a “changing of the guard.”

“The center of gravity of luxury shifted in 2026 from fashion to beauty in its broadest sense,” he says.

– 10,000 euros per liter –

The expert also stresses the habits of Generation Z – the generation born between the mid-1990s and the mid-2010s – who are “in self-optimization mode. And that includes the body and beauty.”

Goodbye crocodile bags and haute couture dresses?

For Benoit Heilbrunn, a marketing professor at the ESCP Business School, young people today “want signs of luxury, but not necessarily luxury goods.”

With cosmetics, brands “play with the idea that it can be luxury, when in fact nothing in substance or material justifies it being luxury,” he asserts.

And prices sometimes reach dizzying levels.

A serum from the Swiss brand “La Prairie” sells for 300 euros for 30 ml… or 10,000 euros per liter, while 500 ml of “La Mer” cream (“Estée Lauder”) sells for 2,970 euros.

“Luxury hyperinflation is starting to infect the beauty industry,” analyzes Eric Briones, with consumers who, in the long term, may turn away from products considered too expensive in favor of less visible brands.

“Or even turn to copies, those cosmetics inspired by the main brands, much cheaper, which are very popular,” he stresses. / a.jor.